The Potential of Whale Watching in the Caribbean: 1999+

one adult of which has a lopped off dorsal fin. Occasionally seen are sperm whales
(October to May is best, though some year-round) or, more rarely, humpback whales
(January-April). The trips have an excellent 80% sighting success rate for dolphins from
April to September. The tours are year-round, but taper off from November to early
January when the winds are stiffer.
Recently, a second operator called Grenadine Tours has begun offering boat
excursions with dolphin watching out of Kingstown, also on the leeward coast of St.
Vincent. They advertise bilingual (French and English) tours.
On Bequia, the main yachting haven in the Grenadines, Heidi and Martin Pritchard
offer sailing tours aboard a catamaran called Passion which includes searching for whales
and dolphins through the Grenadines and along the coast of St. Vincent. The trips do not
promise to deliver cetaceans but, according to Heidi Pritchard, 'we often see them....it is
definitely the highlight of the day when whales and dolphins are sighted on our tours.' In
addition to their scheduled sailing cruises, they also accept charters specifically interested
in finding whales and dolphins. In the total whale-watch numbers for St. Vincent, I have
included a modest allowance of 25% of thePassion's passengers and revenues.
For some years researcher Nathalie Ward has worked to encourage the educational
and scientific potential of whale watching, producing posters, books and other useful
materials and distributing them widely through the Eastern Caribbean. She currently
divides her time between Bequia off St. Vincent, and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In
1989, she formed a volunteer network, called ECCN (Eastern Caribbean Cetacean
Network), originally based in Antigua, but it has recently become affiliated with the
Smithsonian Institute's Marine Mammal Laboratory (Washington, DC), to record sightings
and strandings of marine mammals in the Eastern Caribbean. Endorsed by the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), ECCN offers special survey forms for
fishermen, whale watch operators, yachters, and coastal residents to encourage them to
report all sightings and strandings. According to Ward, ECCN's overall objective is to
encourage more research and education, through better coordination and expansion of
existing resources, and thereby to gain community support for the protection of resident
and migratory whales and dolphins and their marine habitat. ECCN offers in-school
programmes for children and workshops for adults as well as training sessions for field
identification and stranding protocols.
The magical lure and romantic ambience of the Grenadines are widely reported and
lauded in hundreds of tourism articles and guidebooks every year. To those living or
travelling aboard yachts and private boats, the Grenadines offer easy sailing and island
hopping through clean, sparkling turquoise waters. The more than 30 islands and cays of
the Grenadines, partly because they are so close to each other, act like stepping stones for
yachters, and there are numerous accessible small coves and bays to stop and drink in the
ambience. It is not all for the very rich; there is an attractive ferry service between the
islands, and the availability of rustic accommodations as well as those on the private,
luxurious resort islands. For many tourists, the sighting of a whale and the frequent
accompaniment of dolphins while sailing are part of this magical allure. Others meet their
first dolphins while diving on their favourite reef.
For some tourists, however, the magical allure was broken in March 1999 when a
calf and mother humpback whale pair were killed. It was the second time this had
happened in two years, and it sent shockwaves through the local tourist trade. This time
the kill had taken place in front of Mustique Island, and the quotes from tourists in the
international press were not praiseworthy toward St. Vincent or its whale hunters. Of
course, any whale hunt conducted in view of most tourists would be a risky venture. But
this was a calf killed to get to its mother; it was an endangered species; it was the favorite
whale worldwide of many whale watchers for its singing, its frequent breaching behavior
and its eagerness to approach boats full of tourists. The humpback whale is the foundation
of the large whale watching industries of New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, the
Dominican Republic, Hawaii, Alaska, and Australia, among other places. To marine nature
and whale watch operators and tourism officials in these places, killing one would be like
killing the goose that laid the golden egg. But to many tourists, including many of the sort
of tourists who come to the Grenadines, killing a humpback whale is destroying a work of
beauty.
The hunt was undertaken as part of a small quota of humpback whales allowed to a
traditional whaler on Bequia. The whalers involved were relatives of the Bequia whaler.
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